Before the shat hits the fan (OOC musings)

SO things appear to be coming to a head nicely. Looks to be pretty cut and dried if we can pull this off before Ember's concert. We have a power source, a body, and enough time to do it all if we hurry. Sounds like it's all in the bag.

THENNNNNN I remember that we're in the Buffyverse......

So obviously something still isn't adding up. Is Anzo affiliated with this doomsday cult? It doesn't fit his MO. Most corporations was to CONTROL the world, not DESTROY it.

Another thing I am seriously questioning is if Ember is as innocent in this as she SAYS she is. She might have been ONCE, but we have no idea WHO or WHAT is talking to us NOW. If that's the case Cameron's attempt to help her out could backfire in a very very bad way.

And poor Sascha. As if she didn't feel bad enough already, she is just getting the nerve up to try and find out how Bastion feels about her and Anzo drops THAT little bomb. And once again, he is in a situation where he really DOES look like he's manipulating her, but she can't prove it. And Anzo is the one who is actually showing INTEREST. And the one person she might try to get advice from on this matter is the last person she'd tell....Opal.

Sascha is unfortunately not too good at emotional manipulation games, so she's nicely falling into whatever trap he's setting. But her friends may be able to save her from him....which is why he's working towards alienating her from them.

Oh....one other thing that happened. Abe Sapien had a message for Sascha he left with Bastion. That message was that Sascha was not alone. The two of them took that to mean there was another Slayer in town, and they had a pretty good idea as to who.....Snow. Suffice it to say, Arthur is checking with the council on her.

In the near future we will be seeing another Slayer head to town too. Sascha's replacement. Arthur's complaints about Sascha's lack of training will not go unanswered, and another Slayer will be dispatched to take her place.

So if you're a budding Slayer who is just beginning to become open to the possibility of not hating who and what you are, but the opportunity comes up to leave it all behind and live the normal life you always wanted.....but to do so you have to let someone have everything you currently HAVE....what would YOU do?

The End of Ember. Or the Beginning.... (part 3 of 3)

Buffy! Three weekends in a row! I'm not sure whether to enjoy it all or be suspicious of Ragnarok...

Sometime after sunrise, Sascha came home and discovered Arthur had fallen asleep at the kitchen table waiting up for her. She thought it was kinda sweet but weird (Sascha isn’t exactly used to parental types that act parental). She explained what happened and Arthur said that Broom and the rest of his cronies came by and told him what had happened, so he knew she was all right, but probably needed some time to process everything. Sascha, feeling horribly guilty over what happened, admitted to Arthur that she got so angry so quickly with the memories of the other Slayers being slaughtered by this vampire, that (especially as it was preparing to kill Bastion), she couldn’t GUARANTEE she wouldn’t have killed it anyways, even if she KNEW killing it would usher the vampire god into this world. Arthur looked very concerned (Sascha knows her temper is an issue), but gave her a speech about anger being able to be used as a powerful tool….if it is tempered. But then a few more internal thoughts came out when he mentioned with a sigh that with her incomplete physical and emotional training and odd situation, he wasn’t sure she was ready to take on this burden.

Meanwhile the scoobies came back to Pleasant Hills with a plan of sorts. We all split up so the dorks could research what the bull on Ember’s killer’s ring meant, and Cameron went home for his planned meet with Snow.

Further conversation on the topic of Sascha’s readiness to be Pleasant Hills’ Slayer was interrupted by Oscar (the heavy black hacker kid), who came up and started pitching a new training regimen for her (Sascha has been having a definite problem with not being fast or strong enough to take on some of her adversaries. She has the general stats of Kendra, but Faith and Buffy and quite a few of the other Slayers who lived past 15 have better stats). Despite the irony of the fat kid advising her on exercise, his plan sounded pretty good. Sascha still hates being a Slayer, but still wants to become able to do more than survive being thrown through walls and ceilings. Besides….deep down….the memories of the three Slayers who died fighting Kurzan kind of….affected her a bit. They all died bravely, knowing they were probably dead already, but accepting it in order to have a chance to help the world. The vampire Kurzan was a blight on the world, and they knew they had to do everything they could to stop him. She….envied them a bit. At least their calm and lack of fear.

Opal came in and started talking with us about the ring, which Arthur recognized as being a symbol of the Cult of Apis, an ancient Egyptian doomsday cult. If they were sacrificing Ember, and Ember is gaining power from the adoration and virtual worship she gets from being an up-and-coming music legend, then it couldn’t be good. Sascha theorized that Anzo himself may not know what he has and the time bomb Ember is going to be (set to go off that night at her internationally televised concert right there in Pleasant Hills), and said she was going to go talk to him about it and see if he could call off the concert. She left the three of them there to discuss it while she went upstairs to change.

Halfway through changing, she realized someone was on her bed. As she screamed and covered up, Bastion’s large form startled awake. After a very weird conversation (Sascha and Bastion’s thing is that whenever one of them gets open to flirting (which he was in this case), the other one gets all smartarsed and they start fighting like an old married couple again. Ryan think sorta like Straha and Maguna in WTF Comics with more teenaged angst.) Sascha realized that, as Bastion was hurt and couldn’t go to the hospital, that he was going to have to stay with them for awhile. And Arthur just gave him her bed for the duration.

Opal came up to get Sascha and she tried to hide Bastion’s being there, but shouts of “Hey…leave the door open!” kind of revealed his presence. After a very hurredly stammered excuse which Opal didn’t believe, Sascha proved Bastion was hurt….by tossing a small object onto his shins. After his cries of “What’s WRONG with you?? That’s SICK!” faded as the girls walked away, Opal was surprised that Sascha wasn’t happier to see him. “You have a tall dark handsome guy laying in your bed, and the only thing you can think to do is throw things at him?” Sascha admitted she wasn’t COMPLETELY annoyed at his being there, but was unsure enough that she hastily changed the subject, and left in Arthur’s Mini to head to the concert venue to talk to Anzo. For the time being, they made the uneasy decision NOT to tell Cameron about their belief that Anzo may be a patsy in all of this. If it was their father who was behind it, they believed that Snow would be working for him, and Snow can’t discover what Cameron doesn’t know.

Snow showed up and, for the third time in three days, asked him to sign her contract. Then….he took the risk of spilling the beans. He said that what she was offering him (Ember’s contract) wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. Ember’s BODY was her link to this world, and he had no intention of being tricked into this deal. Snow was sitting on the table in front of the chair he was sitting in, fully close enough to reach him. She tensed up and he was convinced she was about to severely injure areas of his anatomy he’d rather like to keep when he realized as he spoke that she wasn’t angry at HIM. His arguments trailed off and very quietly he said “You didn’t know……..did you?”.

In the end his offer was this. He wasn’t going to sign her contract. BUT…..if she REALLY wanted to screw with Anzo and if she felt like helping him recover Ember’s body, he’d still consider employment by her at some point in the future. It’s not like he was going anywhere. And, with a very curt “Let’s go.”, the two of them slipped into her limo and headed towards the Tanaka building.

Once there, they walked straight past the façade into the basement and the Vault. She had the door opened by a very nervous guard and walked in. Thousands of shelves and metal doors lined all the walls, with one crystal ball in the center on a pedestal. Snow walked over to it and used it to find the right door, walked over to it and pulled……and it wouldn’t open. She looked at Cam and said “Nothing in this room is supposed to be locked.” Taking it in stride, Cameron said “Well if it’s mechanical I can try a few things, but if it’s magical….” To which she, without taking her eyes off of him, punched clean through the metal door and pulled it off of its hinges. Inside the door was the body of Ember, wrapped in a translucent blue shroud. She ordered him to pick up the body and follow her. The guard was standing in her way. He said that on Anzo’s orders she was to put the body back and come with him…..

Sascha got in to see Anzo. She began in her usual way…..saying exactly the wrong thing. She said she knew he had been placing her in areas where she’d see the right thing or find the right information to uncover various Tanaka plots lately, but she was confused as to why he was still trying to be nice to her, given how much she had inconvenienced him. His reply was frustrated and a little sad. He said that he had no intentions of manipulating her OR had she inconvenienced him in any way. He wanted to see if a relationship was possible, but she didn’t seem to be able to trust that he was trying to be NICE to her, rather than trying to manipulate her. She refused to trust him and that really frustrated him.

Sascha was taken aback. Here were the exact words she had wanted to hear…..one week ago. Unlike Bastion, Anzo appeared to WANT to be with her….and she was screwing it all up.

She apologized and said it wasn’t fair and that she wasn’t leveling accusations at him, but even if she was wrong about things before she wanted to help him now. She told him about Ember and what they had found, and begged him to call off the concert. He said he couldn’t do that, and seemed to think it was somehow hard to believe, but did say he’d look into it and if he had to, would be able to pull the feed to the TV stations, thereby cutting off most of Ember’s “power” if things got out of hand.

He had to take a phone call then. His brow furrowed for a moment, he said “I see. Shut it down.” And then turned back to her and said he had an issue with a power plant up north that he had to take care of. Sascha said “Thank you for listening to me and trusting me. I’m sorry about earlier. We’ll….talk about the rest after tonight.”. She kissed him on the check (a rare thing for her), and hurried out.

Snow and Cameron were going through quite a bit of trouble getting out of the Tanaka building. It appeared Anzo had called most of the building’s attention to their leaving. Cameron was just thankful Snow seemed angry enough at her brother to not seem to care about the consequences….but Cameron himself realized there were a LOT of cameras on him at that moment. A fact which he knew he’d pay for later, but wasn’t sure of what to do now, so he followed along. 9 guards, one demon chief of security and one barred wall later, Snow and Cam were heading back to her limo and on their way to his house.

Which had Cameron’s parents’ cars in the driveway….. Cursing and thinking quickly, he pulled out his cell and called Opal, who was on her way there and was more than a bit surprised that he actually had the body (remember…Cam was the DISRTACTION so they could work with Anzo to STOP Snow and their father’s schemes). He said she had to grab the body and move it downstairs, and looked at Snow and said “You’re gonna have to stall them for a sec.”. Seeing confusion (thankfully), he pulled her out after him saying “Just play along!”. He headed in and talked to them, introducing Snow as his new girlfriend. They seemed interested enough to talk to her for a bit while he “got her coat downstairs” (after he whispered into Snow’s ear that he knew he was dead but it was almost worth it) and let Opal (now joined by Sascha) into the basement. He heard two heavy thuds, which sent him running back up the stairs.

Cam’s parents were standing back admiring a wall, while Snow stood there with a hammer, and an unnoticed very stressed look in her eyes as Cam’s dad mentioned she seemed to be quite the carpenter with how she got a nail into a tough stud in the wall. Cam smiled and took the hammer from her, saying her coat was in her car. He walked her outside and didn’t get a chance to apologize, as she had his shoulder in a very painful lock, whispering in HIS ear that whatever hell he was going to be in because of this would be nothing compared to what she had planned for him, and not to overestimate his worth to her. He agreed with every word she said until she let go and departed, knowing that Cameron would have no choice once Anzo reviewed those tapes but to seek out Snow’s protection.

Cam headed back downstairs and explained to the two surprised girls what had happened, and who was at fault.

If it had been possible, Sascha actually got paler, as her stomach knotted up….

Laz and Oscar showed up with the power source Cam needed to bring Ember back to life before Sascha could deny and accuse too much, and she just sat down at the back of the room as they worked to hook things up. Less than one hour before the concert, Anzo knew who they were and where they were, and they had a lot of adjustments to make to bring Ember back before she soaked up enough power to become a demigoddess….

The Gloves Come Off (Part 2 of 3)

Buffy recap. Yes it’s long but I think worth the skim. A big event happened.

Whilst the scoobies were in Frisco researching Ember’s untimely demise, Sascha was feeling the effects of the Harry Potter Bone Knitting potion she took, having her bones snap and knit back into place. Once that 3 hour fun period was over, she headed upstairs to join the search for the harbinger of this vampire god, who was supposed to be hitting town any minute. When she got upstairs her watcher did something rather odd…he asked her to sit this investigation out. She was a bit taken aback at this, being a vampire problem and all, and eventually the old man from the government agency (Arthur Broom from Hellboy) came in to pick her up. Broom mentioned they had done initial investigation and had determined who the harbinger was…and that he was here. The harbinger was a nasty ancient vamp by the name of Kurzan, who was well known to her watcher. He once again asked her to sit this one out, saying that the vampire who broke her arm and almost killed her the previous night was nothing compared to Kurzan and mentioning that he carried three braided scalps on his belt of the three slayers he had killed previously. She thanked him for brightening her day, but in the end took off with Broom to meet Liz, Bastion and Broom’s two operatives, codenamed Red and Blue, and plan the attack.

Well obviously we know who Red and Blue are (Hellboy himself and Abe Sapien). Sascha’s meeting with Hellboy didn’t go extremely well (he mentioned he wasn’t on babysitting duty). Meeting Abe went a bit better, other than that he shook her hand and seemed to see something he didn’t like (insert ominous future foreshadowing sound here). The only hint Sascha got about it was that it might involve her feelings on the subject of death (either the fear of it or the assumption that she was doing to die soon).

Kurzan was at the mall, so we started heading over there. On the way there Sascha broke the ice with the biggest question she didn’t want to ask, and found out Liz and Bastion had previously dated for a bit (though she was now with Hellboy). Later in the conversation Liz mentioned that she was the backup plan in case we failed, and her sad look at that made Sascha blurt out that Bastion had mentioned she reminded him of Liz in a lot of ways. She seemed to take a lot of interest in that and then got very introspective. A conversation hole which Abe filled.

He mentioned with some interest as he pointed to the old book he was holding, that he was fairly certain Sascha was supposed to be present at this event and would be instrumental in some aspect of it. She mentioned something to the effect of becoming another scalp on his belt, which got Abe to thinking. He hypothesized that all slayers shared a sort of supernatural memory, which gives them their visions and some of their fighting ability before they are trained. He said he can probably tap into that and give her some of the memories of the three slayers who fought him before. That way she might just go into it with some knowledge of how to fight him. Knowing she was dead unless she got SOMETHING to help her, she reluctantly agreed.

Flashbacks started. The first one was a remote mountain village in the far east in ancient times, where he killed a young girl defending the village. The second was a much faster and better trained slayer in what looked like medieval France, the third a gunslinging slayer in 1800s Dodge City. All three had definite similarities. In all three he took a hit and went down. In all three the slayers moved in for the kill and he struck. In all three, he promised them as they died that he would turn their families and friends into his minions and torture them for a very long time. The last one he mentioned that he would keep killing slayers and their families until one finally put him down, and on that day something extraordinary would happen.

Sascha woke from the vision with tears in her eyes and a look of pure rage on her face. She knew what she had to do. She had to outsucker the bastard. In order to do that she had to play this all out like it was before, and she had to survive his final hit. And in order to do that she needed help.

The car pulled up in front of Laz’s house, and after a brief conversation with his mom and aunt, they produced a set of amulets. When one person is hit while wearing one, it transfers the pain and damage of the hit to whoever is wearing the other amulet…as long as they are willing to take it. The amulets cannot be put onto someone who isn’t willing, and they only work for one hit. So all she needed was someone very large and tough who could survive the hit……*evil grin*

Bastion and Hellboy met us at the mall and Broom gave Bastion a gift he really didn’t want…..his sword from back when he was an angel. Also after a brief and tense conversation with both Sascha and Abe, Hellboy ended up with the second amulet in his pocket and instructions to put it on as soon as Kurzan appeared to be taken down by Sascha. Oh yeah, and he was hers. Given the memories she just regained…this was personal.

Not that the two boys didn’t have their own problems however, in the form of the 50-odd vamps he had with him at the mall who attacked us all. Sascha was quick to break away and engage Kurzan, who smiled and mentioned he wasn’t a big fan of dye jobs in his scalps, but he would be sure and wash it out before braiding it into his belt. Then he hit her so hard he sent her flying into the Baskin Robins sign.

She couldn’t hit him. No matter what she tried she just wasn’t fast enough. He played with her like she was nothing to him. She was close to believing he might just kill her outright instead of playing out the drama of the previous slayers when Bastion got involved and his attention shifted. Knowing Bastion was fated to die and usher in the third sign of this vampire god’s arrival, Sascha rushed Kurzan desperately and was deposited on her arse once again. Bastion was disarmed and Kurzan grabbed his sword from the air and looked at it. Then his hand began to smoke.

Sascha took advantage of the opening and swept his legs out from under him. He his the floor and the drama started. He begged for a moment and she a bunch of crap lines like every other slayer had told him. That vampires deserved no mercy and she straddled him, ready to strike.

Of course it never hit. He caught her wrist and with a motion so fast she couldn’t even see it, he hit her so hard she flew up with enough force to break THROUGH the concrete ceiling to the second floor of the mall. And she didn’t feel a thing.

Flopping back to the stage in front of Kurzan, she tried to get up and collapsed. He prepared to stake HER through the heart like he had done with the slayer in Dodge City, and as he brought it up to hit her, a large stone hand wrapped around his. The opening she was looking for had arrived. She did a desperately fast kippup, leading with the second stake she had hidden in her belt.

The bastard’s look of shock was priceless. Right up until the point where he started laughing.

He motioned towards Bastion and asked why she was concerned about Kurzan killing HIM when Kurzan HIMSELF was the real sacrifice that was required. Apparently “angel” wasn’t the correct translation. Perhaps “servant of a higher power” was closer to what was the truth. And Sascha just did him the favor.

She sat back hard and watched him crumble, and he was laughing the entire time.

In the end, the cleanup crew mopped up the rest of the vamps and we were left laying on the floor of the mall stage, Sascha’s head on Bastion’s chest. In the end they had won, but had brought about the third sign that was required for the vamp god to become free. Sascha said her goodbyes to Broom, Hellboy and Abe. Liz watched Sascha looking worriedly after Bastion as he was wheeled out to an ambulance, hugged her goodbye and whispered into her ear “he’s worth it.”.

Being the least hurt of the three, Sascha decided to walk home. It’d been three days since she’d last patrolled, and she had a job to do.

Intermission and thoughts...

You know, the Unisystem rules that Buffy uses aren’t my absolute favorite, but I will say this. It does a bang up job of running a fast paced Buffy-like game. It’s simple, it’s easy to pick back up, there aren’t a ton of skills and it’s difficult enough o make rolls, while allowing you to spend points to make those REALLY IMPORTANT rolls. Using this system I have successfully thrown an axe through a demon’s head at 100 paces, survived being literally used to demolish a few stone walls, bloodied a vampire that I REALLY had no business even coming CLOSE to hitting (which resulted in the aforementioned demolishing) and many other stunts, while still making sure it isn’t EASY to do these things. The system is really cool if you keep the Buffy world constantly in mind. Thinking of this, I don’t even hate the division of PCs into Heroes and White Hats, which White Hats being the normal Scooby types who are pretty much less powerful than Heroes in EVERY WAY. Aaron and I each play a hero (me the Slayer, him a fallen angel) and the rest are White Hats. Balanced? Nope, but still cool enough that I’m okay with it.

Thoughts on the future of our little game? Well, I’d like to think we can save Ember (one way or another). Sadly even if we can return her to life Cameron’s little half-crush on her is bound for failure, as she’s older and I’m sure she doesn’t want to live anywhere CLOSE to anyone named Tanaka for quite some time. Besides, I like having him free to pursue other fem….i mean interests in the future. Take Snow for instance. ;-)

He should at least get a goodbye kiss out of the deal….and more importantly, even if it was for a girl, he realized that he’s a bit less okay with just letting complicated things go and going back to the party than he used to be. Whether it’s because of the light in his head or the fact that he might actually now be capable of DOING something good is anyone’s guess. He’s going with the light in his head explanation. Still, keeping this schedule and some semblance of a social life isn’t going to be easy.

We seem to be doing the teenage comedy/drama half of a Buffy game as nicely as the action half. Awkward stares and not-quite love triangles abound in this game, where people may or may not LIKE each other, but are too chicken to actually do anything about it. We had the Opal/Anzo/Sascha triangle rear it’s ugly head, and we have Bastion/Sascha/Anzo, the Dawson/Joey/Pacey (wait wrong game…), and of course the Opal/Cameron/Any-interesting-pretty-girl triangle.

And the best part is that other than a few idle discussions about who finds who attractive, there really hasn’t been a single feeling openly admitted as of yet, as they are all teenagers and too damned nervous about it all to admit anything. Sascha really likes Bastion, but is actively trying for Anzo because Anzo has paid more attention to her. Bastion acts unsure of himself enough around her that he might just like her back, but is far too repressed to say anything even if he did. If Anzo is paying attention to Sascha it’s to use her for some scheme, which could be fun. Sascha’s anger at Anzo will know no bounds if and when that all comes out, even though she knows he’s using her RIGHT NOW. Opal and Cameron also actually like each other (them a little more obviously), but they are both a bit too deep into their completely opposite world views to do anything but argue constantly around each other.

It all makes for an interesting backdrop to the action, and makes it all a little more Buffy-like.

I read a bit into the Slayer section of the Slayer’s Handbook and remembered something. Sascha’s bad attitude and dim world views are actually darn near WORD FOR WORD out of the handbook’s description of how Slayers often deal with being what they are. The ones who aren’t trained from birth pretty much all have the bitterness over never being able to have a normal life, they all are ticked that they have such a short “expiration date” (their words, not mine), and while they are all more than human, most of them feel like they are a lot LESS than human. For her, a lot of these feelings got mixed into the general bad attitude and only now that she came so close to dying is she actually looking at it all. Also, unlike some other similar characters (like Drac), Sascha does NOT have a deathwish. I’ve built in a pretty decent fear of death as a GM plot hook later, should he wish to exploit it.

Singing may help her develop a bit more of a connection to humanity and normalcy. It’ll give her another outlet for her aggression and emotions, and it’ll give her something she likes to do that doesn’t involve an axe and a vampire’s head. It will help her get out of the funk she’s in now.

What else is coming? Well we have a harbinger to stop, a vampire god to seal away again, aliens who are a little too interested in me...oh yeah…and fall formal.

And the world expands somewhat.....(part 1 of 3)

Played a decent bit lately and advanced the Buffy storyline somewhat. The brief recap (can’t type forever like I used to thanks to time constraints) will follow. Note: This will require a basic working knowledge of the Hellboy universe to understand it all. If you've seen the movie that should be enough.

Aaron has decided to bring the Hellboy universe (or at least elements and characters from it) into our little version of the Buffyverse. Turns out Bastion and my watcher both have ties to the old dude from the comic.

The Hellboy characters and universe won’t have a LOT to do with our game (more east-cost versus west-coast), but if (okay when) we do a Hellboy game, he thought it might be fun to have the option of adding in elements of both games.


Sascha was pretty busted up at the beginning from the previous night’s vampire fight. A colleague of her watcher showed up to discuss the vampire god she may or may not have released. It turns out the good news is that it isn’t out yet. Bad news is that a harbinger is on his way into town and will gather a vampire army (gather….create…..all the same) and use it to find the last thing that is needed to bring the god into this world. The blood of an angel.

Apparently the old guy had already sent a fallen angel into the area many years ago, when he had been part of a religious order. Sascha thought that sounded eerily familiar to Bastion’s story….so she raced out of there and to where he holed up and asked him about the old man and his story. He confirmed that he was indeed an angel, but he had no intention of going back to talk with the old guy, and seemed to have a serious beef with him in general, saying they had “gone down different paths” some time in the 40s. Needless to say this kind of took Sascha aback, as she had always assumed he was HER age. In the end Liz showed up and talked to him and the two girls convinced Bastion to come back. When Sascha asked who she was, Bastion’s only reply was “You remind me a lot of her.”

She realized Bastion had no intention of letting her help in finding and destroying the vampire god's harbinger. As she was technically a frickin’ VAMPIRE SLAYER, she got pushy about it and he mentioned he would be willing to let her in on things if she was able to get back into fighting shape, which unfortunately meant a trip to talk to the resident medical superscientist.

Unfortunately, she didn’t have Cameron’s number or address, and knew only one person who did. In order to get to him, she had to talk to her ex-“friend” Opal.

Sascha and Opal had it out, and they drug everything out. From thier competition and jealousy with each other over Anzo's attentions to Opal's being jealous of Sascha being a Slayer and hating that Sascha didn't want to be chosen to Opal's walking out of a mission to Sascha's attempts to hedge them out of the monster hunting business in order to keep them safe. It all got covered in one huge screaming match....and then they actually started talking about it. In the end, despite Anzo's warnings about the dangers of anyone Sascha chooses to involve herself with, she and Opal made up and the Scoobies were back on the team. And they headed towards Cameron's house to get Sascha healed up.

Cameron had his own problems. He had a huge machine built in his parents' basement out of household parts that was capable of bringing Ember back to life, but he was becoming very frustrated by lack of a power source. It would take nothing less than a nuclear reation to power this sucker, and he had no access to the materials his new and improved brain told him he would need. Anzo's psycho sister Snow had made him an offer to bring Ember's contract to him and to bring her back to life if he signed over to work for her (she was in direct competition with Anzo in their father's company) and had illustrated all the perks of working for her to him. He had the crumpled paper sitting on his desk and was thinking over whether to sign it when Snow showed up to pick up the contract, signed or not.

Cam was about to put pen to paper when Opal and Sascha showed up at the front door. After a quick conversation Opal convinced Cam to hold off on signing the contract until we could at least check out our own options and verify if the contract had any magical additions to it. After a few snide words between Opal, Sascha and Snow, Snow agreed to come back the next day at noon.

Getting power turned out to not be a problem. Laz's mom was more than capable of magically powering the machine. Trouble was she said she wouldn't help unless we could prove Ember died by magical means. If she was just shot, the price for bringing her back would be too high. She also gave Sascha a Harry-Potter-esque bone knitting potion to get her up and running (after which Sascha took her leave to deal with the harbinger stuff).

So the scoobies assembled and we all drove down to Frisco, where a disheveled, homeless Ember was murdered. Laz was able to do a rewind spell and see that she was definitely not shot. She was grabbed by two people in robes and stabbed by a third, who had a ring with a blue bull on it. What this meant we're not sure (and we're not sure if her cause of death is actually a supernatural one), but they dragged her body off, which Laz was pretty sure meant her body was what was binding her to this world. Her "contract" with Anzo wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. Her body was what we'd need to bring her back to life.

With a vague plan to confront Snow on this (either she's trying to screw us over or Anzo is trying to screw HER over) and very little time to get back and talk to her, they headed back to Pleasant Hills, desperate for options.

A shaky start

Editor's note: This post was at about session 4 of our game. Thus far (the brief skinny) is that Selene, the current lead vamp of Pleasant Hills (My only defense for Aaron here is that this technically happened BEFORE we had seen the Underworld movie!) met Sascha for the first time....or technically it was her fists that met with Sascha's face prior to the introduction of that same face to the brick wall behind her). Selene ended up being some sort of high priestess for a vampire cult of the area. A cult that needed to sacrifice a virgin for some ritual of theirs. A virgin Slayer was even better....

One forced trip into a pocket hell-dimension later, Sascha found a demon-bug who she got to spend eternity with as its bride. Payment for its giving Selene a book that she needed to bring forth some sort of vampire god. She postponed her impending nuptuals with a large battle-axe, fought Selene halfway successfully long enough to steal her magical ticket home, and pitched out of the portal, stranding Selene with what was left of the demon bug.)


This is how the story has been going lately, for better or worse....

Cameron is getting attention from a beautiful, older, rock star chick. One slight problem. She’s kind of a ghost…

He’s also getting attention from a beautiful, older European brunette…but she kind of wants to kill him. :-)

And the one girl that WOULD be good for him (Opal) is getting hit on by the bad guy who WAS hitting on the Slayer (and may still be) and creating jealousy there while the guy the SLAYER wants to be with (Bastion) is still being Mr. Tall Dark and Mopey but appears to have some girl in a corvette (or so Sascha the Slayer thinks).

Sascha is about to disband the Scoobies for their own protection, see how the bad guy feels about her, look into starting a singing career of her own, and Cameron is trying to help this ghost get free from the bad guy somehow and restore her to life if he can.

And add to that…ZOMBIES! ;-)

The Scoobies

Continuing the background, here is Sascha's band of Scoobies (the short version):


Arthur Pennington: Watcher. Basic old british guy. Owns a coffee shop called the Daily Grind which he and Sascha live above.

Oscar: Fat black kid. Computer geek and hacker extraordinaire.

Lazarus (Laz): Goth kid with lots of piercings. Comes from a warlock family and has been foretold to have more power than any warlock from their line in generations. Still doesn't let it dampen his almost creepily laid back attitude.

Kim (Opal): Chinese girl. Nerd/Hippy/Budding Psychic. Opal, Laz and Oscar have been friends for awhile and headed an unofficial and largely ineffective vampire hunting team ever since Opal's brother was killed by a vampire. Then Sascha came into the picture and screwed everything up for them. At school Sascha now generally hangs out with the three of them. At night they hang out with HER.

Bastion: Mysterious demon hunter loner. Tal, dark, handsome, and annoying as hell. Used to be part of a religious order called the Order of St. James, Sascha recently found out his big secret, and the reason he always seems to feel obligated to ride in on the white horse to save her when she needs saving.....he is a fallen angel. Intimidating, no? Regardless, he and Sascha are currently doing the “I hate you/I like you” sexual tension twostep.

Cameron: Rich socialite kid imbued with some white energy while checking on a dying priest. Posesses something called the Light of St. James (note the similarity to above?) which imbues him with supernatural intelligence and healing abilities. Thrown in with who he calls the Freak Squad, he doesn’t hate Opal as much as the rest, but he and Bastion have a rather confrontational relationship so far. Too bad the Order is sworn to find and protect the keeper of the Light.

Sascha Romanov, Slayer of Pleasant Hills

Wrote this in a brief email to Ryan about one of my characters in our current Buffy the Vampire Slayer game. Sascha is one of the new crop of Slayers who came up after the Buffy series ended and has been assigned to Pleasant Hills, WA, a sleepy little rich-man's town in the woods outside of Seattle. It also happens to have its very own Hellmouth.


Description:
Sascha Romanov stands at just over 5 feet tall. An athletically-framed girl with nice curves and a classically beautiful face, she seems to have gone to some pains to portray a more urban image. The front and ends of her shoulder length black hair have been dyed purple in the front to match her violet eyes and she usually wears lipstick to match. She has some of the dusky features of a southern Russian heritage, but is somewhat paler than it would normally be, an aftereffect of a Slayer's nocturnal lifestyle.

Clothing tends towards leather and lace, catholic schoolgirl outfits, and other things that show off without being totally goth. She likes showing off her midriff and legs, and has both a pierced bellybutton as well as a tatoo with symbols on her lower back.



History:
Sascha grew up in Seattle, the child of a Russian couple that came into some money here in the states. She had a good relationship with her family, but was especially close with her older brother, who she saw as a protector and a best friend rolled up into one. She was constantly at his side when she could be. She was given privilege in everything, and early on showed quite a talented singing voice. She began singing lessons when she was seven, and was gaining some local notoriety in those circles for being young and talented.

This all changed when she was thirteen years old. Her brother disappeared without a trace on the way home from his job one night. No trace of him was ever found, and no suspects were ever named. It was as if he disappeared into thin air. This affected Sascha profoundly. Her fear of rejection and feelings of loss and abandonment put up walls in her that she wasn't able to take down again, and she lost any interest she had in singing. She fell into the wrong crowd, committing crimes and distancing herself from her family, and everyone who knew her knew of her horrible temper. This didn't change much when she was Chosen.

It happened one summer day in Seattle. Unbeknownst to her, far to the south, it was the same day a small town in California was blown off the map. It was also the day when many girls across the planet found themselves inexplicably faster, stronger and tougher than any human had a right to be.

She started using this strength a little too blatantly, and was pretty easy to spot for those who were watching for signs of this new crop of Slayers.

She was contacted. She refused. Twice. The Watcher's council gave her one more chance before a wetworks team was dispatched, and the watcher used the one chink in her armor...her brother. If she embraced her "destiny" she might be able to prevent disappearances like that from happening to others. She might even eventually be able to find out what happened to him, whether it was a mugging or a kidnapping, or something else.

She traveled to England for what the new Council affectionately termed "Boot Camp". She trained with other Slayers in duty, in history, in the various known vampires and demons. Through it all she was ever the rebel...she had a quick temper and was too prone to violence too quickly. In the year she was there she was nearly dismissed on four separate occasions for insubordination. Finally they had two choices: kick her out, or put her on active duty. She was rather tersely informed one day that she was to begin her assignment the next week. It was in a small town outside of her home city of Seattle in a community called Pleasant Hills. Apparently a Hellmouth was known to be in this town (though the location was still a mystery). They needed her to patrol this area and keep things under control, as well as find the Hellmouth's location.

It remains to be seen whether they were trying to get rid of her, or they actually expect her to live long enough to do this..



Personality:
Sascha is secretly scared out of her wits. Her brother’s disappearance proved to her how unfair the world was and she was angry as hell. She stopped believing in people that day. Then she was recruited by the council and realized things were even worse than she could have ever imagined. Vampires, demons, werewolves, monsters…they are all trying to take out humanity, and quite often the Slayer is the only one expected to do anything about it.

She also read between the lines. She knows a Slayer doesn’t typically live more than a handful of years after becoming one, and knows a target has been painted on her back. To her, the only thing a Slayer is really good at is dying, and she really doesn’t want to die.

So she feels like the world has shafted her in a big way, and isn’t shy about showing that in her attitude. She doesn’t trust her watcher yet, she doesn’t trust her friends, and would be too afraid to let them in anyways for fear they’d hate her or disappear on her.

Deep down she really just wants to feel safe. She wants to sing and laugh and have fun. For the most part, she is capable of doing this on the surface, but a lot of it is bravado and not enough is actual confidence.

Under Construction

Okay....over at http://geekboi.blogspot.com I have been updating on various games I play (both video and pen & paper), but none of them get as much airtime as our Buffy game. My GM Aaron has crafted a Buffy game I feel would make Master Whedon himself proud with its plot twists and dramatic topics. And the cheese.

So I made the decision to split the Buffy stuff out into this blog.

Over the course of the next whenever-I-get-around-to-it, I will be moving my posts from the main geeky-stuff blog to this page. That way I can keep all interested parties up to date on the Buffy buzz as we play it, and not be afraid other things will get lost in the mix over there.

I really really enjoy this game, and I hope you will enjoy reading a few of our exploits.